Apotheosis
by Dagdoth Fliesh
Summary: Okoi never asked to see demons, she never even thought they existed. Yet, here she was, caught in the middle of a war. HieixOC. After series / rating may change.


Marked Woman

"The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter - often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter - in the eye." - Charlotte Bronte, _Jane Eyre_.

_The day was bright, and the apartment she had settled into, dusty. She hadn't entered this room since childhood. Everything was as pristine as she had left it, even the small smiling doll resting in the corner of the room. Sitting back on the bed, she smoothed wrinkles from the white-flowered covers. A reflection of glass caught blue eyes and she tentatively picked the picture frame from the bedside table._

_A pair of powder blue colored eyes matching her own stared happily back. Her mother's face was somewhat longer than her own, and her jet black hair contrasted the young woman's light brown. But there was such resemblance it was hard to look._

_A weathered hand laid lightly on her shoulder, scars crisscrossing over thin skin like a road map of Stockholm; she turned to look at the ancient face of her grandfather and raised her own far more delicate hand to grasp his._

_"Are you sure you'll be alright here, Okoi?" his wispy voice came, although he barely moved his lips._

_"I think so," nodding in return, she looked back into the photo of her child self and mother._

_"She was a beautiful woman," the old man agreed, as if sensing her thoughts, squinting his own blue eyes to see the picture, made gray by age. "Your father must have felt the same way. Shame you never knew him, he was a good man."_

_Nodding minutely, she placed the frame back on the desk. "Are you sure you'll be alright in the mountains though? You'll be all alone now that I'm here in the city, I don't want - you could move in here with me if you like."_

_"I'll be fine," his wrinkled face twisted into a heavy smile. "Plenty to keep me busy out there so don't worry about leaving. You're a young woman now, you'll do just fine on your own."_

_She smiled, a little more confident, "I will."_

_She stood and her grandfather hobbled to the door, "This place will need some cleaning up, but for the most part the bank has made sure it stayed in good condition - oh look, here's the tea set I bought Kohana and Yorashi on their wedding… That was so long ago now." He paused, looking around for one last time._

_He studied Okoi intensely through fogged eyes; he took her hands in his which were cool to the touch. "I know I've told you this many times Okoi, but you will make a man very happy one day, just like your mother did for Yorashi. You're very sweet and delicate, so make sure he can protect you well." His frail sigh was a happy one. "When you find him, I think I'd like to see my great grandchildren."_

_She giggled lightly and hugged his surprisingly lean figure, hiding her strong blush in his shoulder, "I'll try to find him soon-" she tried to say, but although she mouthed no sound came out. Confused she touched her lips._

_She didn't have a mouth - - only congealed burnt skin._

Okoi woke with a terrible sweat on her brow. The dark room squeezed oppressively around her, choking her breaths, and although she gasped, and could feel the air filling her lungs, it was not adequate. She flailed momentarily, kicking, although it felt as if she were bound and fastened against metal, her limbs heavy and lethargic, and did so until her heavy covers were at the foot of the bed.

She felt her face, sighing in relief. "It was only a dream, silly," she told herself, still pressing the tips of her fingers against the corners of her lips. The feeling of dread stayed, tightening in her belly until Okoi thought she might be sick. "Only a dream…"

A reoccurring dream that became less hazy with each viewing. She could still feel her grandfather's hand on her shoulder and the scratchiness of his shirt against her forearms. The ending was new, and disturbing. Okoi could write it off as post-traumatic stress from her grandfather's passing a month ago - she had a basic understanding of psychology, of course - but how were her dreams so tangible? And there had been other things as well. Shadows moving in the corner of her eye, shapes in the darkness. Was she developing schizophrenia? She didn't want to dwell on it. Just thinking about her night terrors curdled her stomach.

Okoi reached for her bedside lamp, missed, and accidentally knocked the picture of her mother from the desk. It landed with a muffled thump on the floor. With a sigh and a wash of light she picked up the familiar frame, turning it over.

She had to do a double take - - and Okoi flung the picture of her mother away from herself with a choked scream.

Kohana's eyes were burned out, and all that remained of the once blue orbs were black charred holes.

* * *

"Are you sure you're okay, Tanaka-chan?" Hiriko asked Okoi. Hiriko Adachi was one of a few girls at the University she'd come to know in the semester she'd attended. The girl was sweet, if not a little plain with squinting eyes and a pleasantly freckled nose, black locks combed neatly to the waist. "You've been very quiet."

"I'm tired, I guess my studies have caught up to me." Okoi was _not_ about to say, 'I've been having nightmares and think I'm going insane.' She'd spent the last week battling sleep (since the picture) with American style black coffee and copious amounts of tea and caffeine, but her grades felt the effect because no one can truly study and take exams without rest. The one time she had slept, it had only been for moments, face down at her desk with a text-book as a pillow. Her racing heart woke her to her room, as she had left it. However, she was not going to trust a few seconds of undisturbed sleep for an entire nights.

"I know," Hiriko sighed demurely. "Togashi-sensei's exam was extremely hard. I swear he didn't cover half the questions in his dry lectures."

He honestly hadn't, or at least Okoi hadn't remembered in her sleep deprived state. As the pair approached the gates leading from the University, enveloped in amiable chatter and parting crowds of students making their way across the grounds to their perspective lectures, Okoi glanced along the wall. That's when she saw him. He was not tall, but he was also not dressed in school uniform, clad instead in black. He leaned almost casually against the bricks, hands in his pockets, as if waiting.

She couldn't say exactly why she had looked there to begin with, only that once she saw him, she found she could not break the gaze of his intense umber eyes. But the longer she looked the longer his eyes seemed to shed the still brown and color so unnaturally she could do little else but try to understand _what_ she saw. Layers of the brown peeled back to a red so hot it burned like molten fire, blazing and filling her with a horrible, painful heat that started in her insides and flowed through every pore down to her toes and fingertips like electricity, as if her skin were suddenly aflame. Fires danced in his eyes, bright crimson blood thirst - - they spelt murder for her. His features were placid, unchanging, but his eyes… they bored into hers, and with a strangled, dreadful, fear she finally realized _he _ was also looking at _her._ His glare cut deep, isolating her from the crowd like a lion isolating a zebra from the herd. '_Please,_' she thought, willing herself to break the gaze, '_look away.' _She was unable.

"Tanaka-chan!" Hiriko waved a hand in front of her face.

Okoi looked at Hiriko, and then looked back at the wall where those two ruby orbs pierced her audaciously. Hiriko followed her gaze.

"Well that's rude," she figured, Okoi half wondered why her colleague didn't comment on the redness of his eyes. "Let's go."

Okoi agreed hurriedly, but even as she walked away she could still feel those eyes boring into her neck with an intensity that might have killed. She dared not look back, no matter how much she wanted to, just to know if he really still looked in her direction. "He scared me," she admitted to Hiriko, once they were out of earshot.

"Not the type you want to get mixed up with," the level-headed Hiriko agreed in a whisper. "He looked like yakuza, but probably not very high up yet - - he didn't even have a suit. Just a common thug."

Yakuza… yes. Okoi shook her head minutely. She could put off those blazing eyes as a trick of the setting sun, more so as a lack of sleep. "He felt so dangerous," Okoi really didn't know how to describe it. "I swear he wanted to kill me."

"Kill you?" Hiriko laughed a little, and Okoi felt silly, abet a little better. "What are you, a marked woman?"

She managed a laugh, "I hope not, that would _really_ interfere with my schooling."

They walked a short way from the University and downtown past other students studying in cafés or window shopping. And yet, Okoi still felt as if she were being watched. When she had the courage to glance about, she did not see the strange man anywhere in sight. She thought it would make her feel better, or even give a sense of relief, but it didn't, if anything, it put her more on edge. '_Hiriko probably thinks I'm crazy, stop it,' _ she told herself after another uncounted look behind her into the busy evening crowd, to catch whoever was staring into the back of her head. '_You're just being ridiculous now.'_

She resisted the urge to do so again after they entered a yakitori-ya (a restaurant serving grilled chicken skewers). Too early for the restaurant to be full, this one filled with salary men after work, but a few tables already set up, filled mostly with suits. Okoi and Hiriko ordered, received the food, and sat relatively close to the back, studies in hand.

Okoi had thought herself hungry up until she had the food. Her neck prickled horribly as she nibbled at a wing of chicken and ginkgo nut, eyes unfocused on the text-book before her. She glanced upwards towards Hiriko and found her friend immersed. Beyond her a few business men laughed over their drinks, another table sat a family with a few young children, but beyond them just next to the door sat two men, thugs, facing her.

Looking at her.

The one closest to the door, on the right, had his dark short hair greased back. He was lanky limbed, but tall, dressed in dark jeans and a slightly oversized white blazer, his hands shoved into the pockets; his long legs stretched awkwardly into the walkway, and in his mouth he swirled a toothpick in a bored way. His cohort was a tad shorter and dressed much the same, but in darker colors and his hair was lighter and a bit longer without the grease. Both were wearing shades, and could have looked anywhere in the restaurant, even outside. Okoi didn't know how she knew, but she knew they were watching _her_. Her spine prickled with nerves.

Just as she was about to say something to Hiriko, the taller of the pair leaned sideways and mouthed something to his friend, who nodded, and they stood, shuffling out of the restaurant mainly unnoticed. Okoi's eyes followed them through the window where they crossed the street, only to take up positions on the other side leaning against a small bookstore. The shorter of the pair reached into his pocket and pulled out a smoke, cupping his hands to light the stick. The other continued looking at her. It was a silly thing to think that, Okoi knew, with the sunset reflecting on the glass, but the unnerving sensation crawling down her spine said otherwise. They were waiting for her to leave, and the sun sunk behind buildings.

Usually Okoi and Hiriko would leave together, after longer studies, but Okoi's conscious fears made her wonder if she should leave now, and without Hiriko. Hiriko may have been with her, but Okoi's pounding heart told her that it was only herself they wanted, not Hiriko. She met those dark shades of the man in the white blazer and for the second time today, she felt the electric charge of static in her fingers and toes. It was far less intense than the short man with red eyes, but it was still there, and that alarmed her.

"Hey?" she started, unsure, after a few more minutes passed. She didn't want to leave in total darkness. "I'm going home to get some rest. Study hard for our last final tomorrow, okay?"

Hiriko looked up, eyes slightly worried. "Are you sure you're okay? You look pale as a ghost."

Okoi managed a light laugh, putting on her best smile for her friend. "I'm fine, just tired. I'll see you later."

"Alright," Hiriko looked unconvinced but let it be. "Sleep well."

"I will," but only if she was wrong about the thugs, and still probably not then.

Plucking her school bag from the seat, Okoi left the half eaten food on the table and left the yakitori-ya. As she did so, she watched the shorter of the two thugs drop his cigarette on the ground and smash the smoking embers to pulp with his heel.

Her heart pounded and her throat felt tight, mouth dry. They were really following her. She wasn't sure if they knew she knew that, but she wasn't exactly willing to find out. Gripping the strap of her shoulder bag tighter, she started walking briskly back towards the University. She definitely wasn't going to walk home and show them to her doorstep, atop that, the University did have a small security force.

However the closer she got to the school, the less people she saw, and the more disconcerted she felt. The street was empty save for two or three people, and the sun had all but set, causing shadows to stretch long and dark in places she'd rather not go, although taking those routes would perhaps quicken her half jog back towards school. Footsteps followed her every step, and she thought she heard a snigger, but she wouldn't look and give them the opportunity to frighten her more - - she could already feel their eyes boring into her back.

But the closer she got to the University the more it felt _wrong_. There were no people on the streets - - besides her and the two thugs that followed. She was alone, and feeling ever more like she had been in the wrong to leave Hiriko's side. That feeling of unease grew with every moment, feeling baited and hunted every step towards the University, until she slowly came to a stop, and glanced backwards from where she'd come.

The two thugs were behind her, leering and smirking.

She didn't want to go towards the school, there was something bad waiting at the end of that walk, but going back the way she came felt equally wrong.

"You're a pretty sensitive little thing."

Okoi jerked towards the gruff voice, and gasped. A white blazer was barely visible in the shadows peaking from an alley. But he had just been behind her, hadn't he? She swallowed tightly and looked behind, but only saw the shorter of the two. Something here was terribly wrong.

"Cat got your tongue?"

"What do you want?" she asked with a voice that sounded stronger than she felt. They were walking towards her from either side. "I haven't done anything, so please, just leave me alone."

"You haven't," the white wearing blazer agreed. His toothpick moved obstinately with his words, almost falling from his lips. "But you have something we want, so we're going to _take_ it."

As they closed in, Okoi realized they were forcing her back into the ally besides her, corralling her further and further into the shadows while her mind raved and wondered what she had that they could want.

"I don't have any money," she managed, feeling like hands were strangling her throat. Her hand slid along the wall, as she used it to balance herself. Okoi's legs felt heavy and unyielding to her commands. She wanted to run, but she had turned mostly to jelly.

The thug sneered, as did his cohort, who had yet to say anything. "Oh, we don't want that."

Her heart dropped into her stomach and churned.

The thug's palm smacked against the wall besides her and he leered. She could have screamed for help, perhaps should have, but her throat wouldn't even make the most basic of sounds. Her fear had the better of her.

Up close she could see the pores on his skin and the slight stubble that had been half shaved from his chin. His other hand tilted his glasses down, so she could see him eye-to-eye.

But his eyes. They weren't human.

His skin slipped and budged until his form towered over her, his clothes ripping, and his teeth extended and twisted behind receding lips until they resembled daggers in a gaping maw. The glasses on his nose cracked and fell to the pavement as his size grew and twisted until he looked nothing human. Large bulbous cat-like eyes rolled towards her in their noxious purple sockets.

Okoi could not make a sound as the horrible rancid breaths huffed against her face.

A look of confusion, if that's what it could be called on the fish-like features before her, passed slowly. It was the only warning before a huge clawed fist grabbed the collar of her shirt and hoisted her high.

"I want those eyes, human. You have a demon's eyes!"

A moment later Okoi hit the ground with a solid thump and a _whoosh_ of air from her lungs. Her hands scraped on the pavement but the pain was forgotten as she looked up. The monster had stumbled backwards, clutching what was now a stump of an arm which spurted noxious black blood between his claws.

And between the monster and her stood a short man wearing a familiar black cloak which fluttered softly in the stale breeze. He held a katana outstretched, and as he turned towards her in a half glare over his shoulder Okoi recognized him with intense dread.

"You?" he said condescendingly, and looked to say something more before the creature before him howled in rage, and instead turned back towards the demon.

"_Gagh_! You miserable little runt! This is our human, you can't have her!"

"You know the price for breaking Enki's law," although Okoi could not see his features because he faced away from her, she could hear the distaste in his tone. He sheathed his blade with a flick. "But maybe you don't, you're so moronic you don't even know when you're _dead_, at least your friend died with dignity."

"Wha-? I'll crush-!"

A wet sound followed the enraged expression on the beast's face as it reached towards the man in the cloak. His body slipped, gushing with red, and with a ghastly howl collapsed into cleanly cut blocks of flesh. The scream was half out of Okoi's mouth by the time she clamped her hands over it.

Okoi didn't believe what she had witnessed. Her heart pounded in her chest and her vision swam a long moment in which she thought she'd either be sick or faint. '_Is this a dream?!'_

But it wasn't, and when the man in the cloak turned towards her, her fear jumped back into her bones and she jerked to attention.

"Stay away from me!" Okoi demanded, terrified.

He looked unimpressed, mouth twisting into something best described as a hard grimace. "Believe me, I have no _intentions_ of getting close to _you." _


End file.
